Two sets of paddle-wheels.
Principle of construction.
Her motive power was to consist of two sets of wheels, “constructed in such a manner and so placed as to obtain a vast increase of speed;” she was to be divided into seven water-tight compartments, and the engines were to be entirely distinct, 130 feet apart. She was to be constructed on the diagonal principle and trussed with bars of iron as shown in the following midship section. There was to be “a solid arch on each side of the ship, together with the vertical arch and iron diagonal bracing, extending over the whole frame, affording a construction of strength and security never equalled.”[161]
But her midship transverse section was the most striking feature of this great ship; it is in many respects novel, and so different from the midship section of any vessel constructed in other countries, that the following representation of it may prove interesting and instructive.
Advantages to be derived from vessels thus built.
The proposed arrangements present an amount of accommodation for passengers greatly superior to any obtainable in vessels of similar size constructed on the principles generally followed by the shipbuilders of Great Britain. The almost dead flat floor, adopted with the American idea of, as far as practicable, skimming over the surface of the water, rather than forcing a passage through it, is at variance with the form hitherto considered by us most desirable where great speed is required. But we are daily expanding the breadth of the round and rising floors of our ships, and approaching the American form, and, so long as there is sufficient depth to secure stability,[162] some persons consider that vessels with flat floors and fine ends are the best models for speed as well as for capacity.
Although the ocean-going steamers of Great Britain, as in the case of the great competition between the steamers of the Collins and Cunard lines, to which reference will presently be made, have, hitherto, in a commercial point of view, surpassed those of the United States, it is much to be regretted that Mr. Randall’s ship was never built. As she was the nearest approach in size to the Great Eastern of any vessel hitherto contemplated, her trial would have been interesting, especially as it was thought that her form and mode of construction presented greater elements of success as regards speed and capacity in proportion to her register tonnage; and, if we apply the formula for determining the strength of a truss, we shall find that, in proportion to the weight of materials used, with the system of bracing proposed, she would have more effectually resisted the twisting or writhing so fatal to long and heavily-laden ships when they encounter the violently agitated cross seas of the Atlantic Ocean.
Mr. Randall’s experience of steamers employed on the Lakes and Pacific.